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    P.C. Barua: Legends of Indian Cinema
    P.C. Barua: Legends of Indian Cinema
    P.C. Barua: Legends of Indian Cinema
    Ebook137 pages58 minutes

    P.C. Barua: Legends of Indian Cinema

    By Shoma A. Chatterji

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    About this ebook

    Pramathesh Chandra Barua or P.C. Barua as he was known, was an enigma through his life.
    Born into a royal family, this prince-turned-actor-director changed the theatrical manner of stylised acting into the conversational manner of real-life situations. His rise as an actor-director was matched with tragic failures in his personal life. Strangely, the last stage of his life resembled that of the hero he made famous - Devdas. Alcohol became his nemesis, he was consumed by tuberculosis, and died an untimely death.
    This book traces the life and towering achievements of one of the legends of Indian cinema.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWisdom Tree Publishers
    Release dateFeb 4, 2011
    ISBN9788183282260
    P.C. Barua: Legends of Indian Cinema
    Author

    Shoma A. Chatterji

    Shoma A. Chatterji has been writing on cinema, television, Gender studies and human rights for the past two decades.

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      Book preview

      P.C. Barua - Shoma A. Chatterji

      Pramathesh chandra Barua The crownless prince, the eternal devdas

      Pramathesh chandra Barua

      The crownless prince,

      the eternal devdas

      Shoma a. chatterji

      © Shoma A. Chatterji, 2008

      Photographs by Osian’s Connoisseurs of Art, National Archives of India, Rashmi Mitra and P.K. Nair

      Photographs: p. (i) P.C. Barua in Devdas (Bengali); p. (ii) P.C. Barua with Chandrabati Devi in Devdas (Bengali)

      ISBN 978-81-8328-104-1

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise — without the prior permission of the publisher.

      Published by

      Wisdom Tree

      4779/23 Ansari Road

      Darya Ganj

      New Delhi – 110002

      Ph.: 23247966/67/68

      Published by Shobit Arya for Wisdom Tree; edited by Manju Gupta; designed by Kamal P. Jammual; typeset at Marks and Strokes, New Delhi-110002 and printed at Print Perfect, New Delhi-110064

      CONTENTS

      Editor’s Note                       vii

      1.   Introduction                        1

      2.   The Making of a Prince                  7

      3.   The Making of a Creative Artist         39

      4.   The Real Devdas                      87

      Filmography                       113

      Portriat of P.C. Barua

      Editor’s note

      The story of Pramathesh Barua has all the makings of a fairy tale — the prince who became an actor and a filmmaker — dashing, flamboyant, handsome, talented and rich, transforming the cinema of his time.

      But he was a prince steeped in melancholy who looked for solace in the arms of women, who found relief in alcohol, then died of tuberculosis when he was just 48. But not before he had made an indelible mark on Indian cinema. He introduced a daringly new style of acting — low-key, restrained, understated — in films that have stood the test of time. It was he who first brought on to the screen the doomed hero of Saratchandra Chatterjee’s Devdas, the figure who clearly echoed Barua’s own introverted, melancholy character.

      Devdas, the film and the character, reverberated through the country in the decades that followed. The romantic lover whose tragic flaw is the inability to be decisive and who dies yearning for his lost love. If one can pick a single character that shaped not only Indian cinema but Indian youth through decades, it was Devdas. Barua directed both the Bengali and Hindi versions, playing the protagonist himself in Bengali before directing K. L. Saigal in the Hindi version that followed. Both versions made Devdas into a cult figure.

      In Mukti he also created the doomed figure, prepared to sacrifice himself. In Zindagi, with K. L. Saigal, the lovers are again forced to part. Death was the ending of many of his films — death by choice, or death or separation imposed by a cruel, unfeeling fate. Perhaps he himself was always haunted by the thought of his premature mortality. These were only four of the many films that Barua created, from the silent era through the challenging years of the thirties when he was with the legendary New Theatres.

      PRAMATHESH CHANDRA BARUA

      viii

      Barua not only personified the characters he portrayed in his films as writer, director and often actor but his impact on Indian cinema when it was evolving in the early years is far- reaching. His influence extended far beyond his time. Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt, Bimal Roy (who was the cameraman of Barua’s Devdas before making his own version 20 years later) were his fervent admirers.

      Like many of the great innovators and stylists of an early era, today they are hardly remembered. This book is part of a series to recall them with a sense of pride and acknowledge their immense contribution to the history of Indian cinema.

      Shoma A. Chatterji is among the few today who writes of the legendary figures of the past with dedication and passion. In this book she brings alive one of Indian cinema’s most charismatic figures.

      Aruna Vasudev

      Series Editor

      EDITOR’S NOTE

      ix

      1

      Introduction

      "I climbed the steps of life and did not waste a moment.

      I reached the top and looked down; I saw I had only ruined myself."

      — P.C. Barua to his son, Abhijit Barua

      Pramathesh Chandra Barua, a real-life prince, was born in the royal family of Gauripur, Assam, in October 1903. Some accounts mention the date as October 10 while others say it was October 24. Such biographical confusions dot Barua whose life-story offers stuff more exciting than the scripts of the films he

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